


the path to sacrifice (its paved with happy memories)

by mayathewriter



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Major Character Almost Death, Major Character Injury, Near Death Experiences, Raydia Week Day 3 - Change, Raydia Week Day 3 - Sacrifice, the good raydia tropes my dudes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-23
Updated: 2018-10-23
Packaged: 2019-08-06 20:20:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16394423
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mayathewriter/pseuds/mayathewriter
Summary: "Fight. Fight through this. I know you can."





	the path to sacrifice (its paved with happy memories)

**Author's Note:**

> its kinda rushed n messy but it is what it is. i'll probably go back and fix stuff once i have time whoops. anyways, enjoy! im probably going to take tomorrow off to play catch up and get day 2 finished bc oh Boy is that one a big brainchild now

It had been a long journey to get here, the road hard and long but paved with memories Rayla wouldn’t part with for anything. 

Finding the egg, growing closer to the princes.

Falling in love.

The first time Rayla met Claudia, she’d thought they would never be anything more than enemies. But then she showed up at their campsite with her brother in tow, ready to fight only to lose any aggression upon seeing Zym for the first time. That was the first time Rayla caught a glimpse of the funny dork with a soft heart, usually so hidden by her hard exterior of the prodigal mage that would do anything for her father.

So they traveled together, personalities and values clashing over and over until everybody else had gotten sick of it.

 

_ Rayla woke up to an almost empty campsite, the only evidence of life around her being the black-cloaked figure that seemed to be waking up as well. _

_ “Where is everyone?” Claudia asked blearily, looking around, her eyes inevitably landing on Rayla and only Rayla. Pursing her lips, Claudia stood, pointedly turning her back to her. “This isn’t funny Soren! We don’t have time for your pranks!” _

_ Rayla sighed, standing as well to scope out the area around the woods. She’d been trying to build a bond with Claudia over the past few weeks, but to no avail. The mage seemed stuck in seeing her as a bloodthirsty monster. _

_ Rayla eventually found the others, hidden in the woods. She simply shook her head, before going back to their campsite, where she giggled quietly to herself as she watched Claudia try to climb a tree with branches meters above her head. _

_ (That was the second time, more of the goofball. Rayla wished she got to see more of it, even then) _

 

The whole thing was planned, of course. Callum’s idea, to try and get the two of them to get along. It didn’t work all that well, but another opportunity arose a week later, one that they both took.

 

_ Rayla saw the arrow headed for Claudia, and didn’t think before she felt the sharp, hot pain sear through her shoulder, crying out in pain. _

_ “Oh no,” she muttered on the way down, the impact knocking the wind from her lungs. “My slish arm. I just got feeling back in that hand.” _

_ Callum had smacked her good shoulder for that, bringing out a quiet, strained laugh from her. Soren and Claudia had distracted the last of them, scaring them off enough to give the group of traveling teenagers time to lick their wounds. Or in Rayla’s case, pull the arrow and wrap her wound. Whichever works. _

_ That evening, when it was just her and Claudia sitting in the far edge of camp, Claudia fixing her wrappings and Rayla trying not to make too much noise. There was a heaviness over them, thickening every moment Claudia sat there, handling her shoulder with more gentleness than anything she’s handled since joining their group. _

_ “I never thanked you,” Claudia said softly, breaking the silence without looking away from her shoulder. “For taking that arrow for me. I don’t think I would have survived the hit.” _

_ Rayla just nodded, expecting her to stop there and call it even before going back to acting like everything Rayla does is either the greatest inconvenience of her life or is actively causing the deaths of small animals as she did it.  _

_ Maybe Rayla was being a touch overdramatic. _

_ “I haven’t really… given you a lot of opportunities to prove yourself. It’s mostly just been me shooting you down for nothing and I’m sorry for that. You’ve proven yourself enough today alone.” _

_ Rayla smiled, wide and genuine as she saw the first hidden side of Claudia come up again, vulnerable and soft. “I think it’s been a few times over today, if I do say so myself,” she said, but the words had no bite behind them. Claudia laughed, and Rayla was over the moon, feeling as if a weight had been lifted off of her. _

_ “Mind if I stay a while?” Claudia asked, finishing up the bandage around her arm. _

_ Rayla, of course, said yes. _

 

Then, there were little things.

Evenings spent together, recounting their own stories of the stars that decorated the night sky, like diamonds scattered over velvet. Rayla learned about Katolian myths and legends, and about the rhyme students learn to remember the stars of Katol, the warrior that their country is named after. In turn, Rayla would share Xadian folklore and bedtime stories, pointing to the constellation of Thunder with baby Zym in her lap, following the Path of Happy Memories up to the Dragon King.

There were the campfire nights, when they would immediately be drawn to one another, sitting shoulder-to-shoulder even if there was space on their log. They didn’t necessarily talk on those days, but Rayla found quiet comfort in her proximity, a barrier against her worries about the mission when they crept from the shadows of the campfire.

In between everything, the times when they would share her horse, tossing jokes back and forth as they rode, or when they would walk next to each other and point out interesting plants, getting closer and closer, until their knuckles brushed with every step, Rayla learning more and more about the sides of her she keeps hidden to most in between each one.

 

Now, as she stared down a battlefield she likely wouldn’t walk off of, Rayla began to realize that somewhere between all of that, she’d gone and fallen in love. Unfortunate timing, really.

So, she fought with everything she had, hoping to get the chance to tell Claudia something, get the chance to say what she needed to say before she died with those words imprinted into her heart.

As it turns out,  _ her _ chance also ended up being  _ Claudia’s _ , who pulled her behind a pillar for shelter from an explosive spell and kissed her hard on the mouth, cupping her face for a brief second, letting them breathe the same air for a split second.

“Stay safe,” she said, not much more than a ghost of a breath over her lips before she was gone, hurling another spell back at her father with vengeance in her eyes.

But Rayla didn’t get a chance to process because someone must’ve known where they would come out from because there was an arrow on its way to Claudia and she had to  _ do something _ because she couldn’t let the girl she loved die, even if that meant giving her own life.

The pain she was feeling was familiar, acutely so, but far, far lower on her body.

A scream echoed around her. “ _ Rayla _ !”

Rustling. When had she gotten on the ground? Why were her eyes closed?

“You’re not allowed to die right after I confess to you, dummy!” Claudia scolded gently, the effect ruined by the tears that were interrupting her speech. “We were supposed to make it out of this and be awkward for a few weeks before one of us breaks and forces the other to talk about it. Come on, please, Rayla.” She was crying harder, but Rayla couldn't think of what to do to get it to stop. “Fight. Fight through this, I know you can.”

 

She fought.

 

She won.


End file.
